“Send us Hagel
and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite.”

That’s what a
top Republican Senate aide told
the Weekly Standard in response to the news that President
Obama is likely
to nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as his new
Secretary of Defense. Normally, the Israel lobby would try to hide
such viciousness, acting behind the scenes to go after their
perceived enemies in ways that might repel bystanders: not this
time, however.

It’s an
indication of their diminished stature and power that they are
openly going in for the kill, perhaps hoping they can pull
a Bobby Ray Inman. Inman, you’ll recall, took
himself out of the running for SecDef during the Clinton
administration when Bill Safire, then Likudnik-in-chief among
newspaper columnists, went
after the respected former admiral and intelligence
maven because he had sought
to limit our sharing of intelligence with Israel. No
sooner had the Inman appointment been announced then it was suddenly
discovered he had failed to pay Social Security taxes to a baby
sitter, among other “crimes.” Hagel, however, is made of tougher stuff, so it will have to be the President who blinks.

Why the hate directed
at Hagel? Bill Kristol, the neocons’ little Lenin, has
provided us with a
handy list of reasons, all of which involve Hagel’s
adamant refusal to take his marching orders from Tel Aviv.

AIPAC, the powerful
pro-Israel lobby whose local affiliates spend millions bribing
members of Congress, routinely circulates letters on this or that
issue-of-the-moment involving the Jewish state’s demands on
Washington, which our solons are then blackmailed into signing. Most
of them do: not Hagel. Asked about this at a New York meeting with a
pro-Israel group pushing for a US attack on Iran, the
straight-talking Vietnam vet told his interlocutor:

“Let me clear
something up here if there’s any doubt in your mind. I’m a U.S.
Senator. I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a U.S. Senator. I support
Israel… But my first interest is, I take an oath to the
constitution of the United States. Not to a president, not to a
party, not to Israel.”

We ought to be
grateful to Kristol for his assiduous research: while I havepraised
Hagel in the past,
I didn’t know he was this good. Kristol’s list of Hagel’s
‘crimes” is a veritable compendium of what a reasonable
American foreign policy, one based on American rather than Israeli
interests, ought to look like.

Back in the winter of
2001, Hagel refused to sign a letter from America’s Likudniks
demanding that President Bush not meet with Yasir Arafat. While
Hagel didn’t cave, Bush
did — and subsequently
insisted the Palestinians hold elections. The
Palestinians complied — and put Hamas in
office, torpedoing the peace process (and giving the
Israelis all the excuse they needed to keep negotiations at a
standstill). In retrospect, Bush was a fool — the Israel
lobby’s fool, that is — and Hagel’s principled
stand was prescient.

Of course, the
Likudniks had a “solution” to this: ban “terrorist
groups” from the Palestinian elections. AIPAC circulated a
letter to its congressional helots, addressing this demand to the
administration: Hagel refused to sign that one, too, perhaps on the
grounds that if such a standard had been applied to Israeli
elections, not a single one of the founding leaders of the Jewish
state would have been allowed to run for office. Yitzhak
Shamir, who became Prime Minister of Israel on three
separate occasions, was in charge of the Lehi
terrorist group’s assassination
squad during Israel’s fight for independence.
Among his victims: a British minister, Lord
Moyne, and Count
Bernadotte of Sweden. The Irgun,
the main Israeli terrorist organization, which murdered
British soldiers and blew
up the King David Hotel, was headed up by none other
than Menachem
Begin, who went on to become Prime Minister. The
Haganah,
an illegal “militia,” the pre-independence version of
the IDF, was led
by David
Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister. And
the list goes on …

When Israel invaded
Lebanon in 2006, bombing hospitals, water plants, churches, and
residential areas,
killing and maiming thousands, President Bush backed
the Israelis to the hilt — while Hagel called
for an immediate ceasefire. Again, Hagel’s judgment, in
retrospect, is proven superior to the range-of-the-moment political
opportunism of his colleagues: before the invasion, Hezbollah’s
armed wing had around 1,000 soldiers under arms, whereas afterwards
that number tripled, and political support for the fundamentalist
Islamic group soared to 80 percent of the Lebanese electorate. The
invasion, instigated by neocons in the Bush administration, was a
total flop, strengthening Israel’s avowed enemies.

Similarly, Hagel
refused
to sign yet another letter demanding the European Union declare
Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a gesture the hypocrisy of which
was underscored due to the timing — in the midst of Israel’s
terroristic bombing campaign. In the Likudnik lexicon, defending
oneself against Israeli aggression equals “terrorism.”

Senator Hagel voted
against Iran sanctions every time they came up for a vote, including
meaningless symbolic gestures such as a Senate resolution
designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist”
organization. The bill, which passed the Senate with only four
“nays,” would have set up yet another tripwire for war
with Iran, implicitly giving the President the green light to attack
the Guards without congressional approval. While the prospect of war
with Iran may thrill the laptop bombardiers over at the Weekly
Standard, the vast
majority of Americans are opposed to yet another war
in the Middle East.

Among the greatest of
Hagel’s crimes, according to Kristol, is that he believes
Palestinians cannot “be expected to make democratic reforms as
long as ‘Israeli military occupation and settlement activity’
continue, and that ‘Israel must take steps to show its
commitment to peace.’” This is not only the view of the
Obama administration, it also reflects the views
of the
man in the street — the American street, that
is.

Hagel is against
US intervention in Syria and refused to vote for the “Syria
Accountability Act,” which set the stage for US
support for al-Qaeda-inspired “rebels” — a
conflict the overwhelming majority of Americans say they want
no part of. But what Americans want is of little
concern to Kristol and his fellow neocons: for them, it’s all
about Israel — and, of course, they never met a war they
didn’t want to start.

Kristol’s list
of Hagel’s deviations from neoconservative doctrine includes
his endorsement of the Saudi peace
plan, which would have required the Palestinians to
recognize Israel in return for withdrawing from the West Bank and
internationalizing Jerusalem. The plan was also endorsed
by that notorious anti-Semite and former Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

Hagel’s biggest
sin, however, is identifying the Israel lobby by name and declaring — in public — his willingness to defy it. This is going
to be the locus of the controversy that is rapidly developing and
will come to a head at his confirmation hearings — that is, if
Obama doesn’t back down first and appoint someone else.

In an interview with
Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator during the
Clinton years, Hagel said he wasn’t intimidated by “the
Jewish lobby,” and the Israel Firsters are ripping this out of
context as alleged proof of his “anti-Semitism.” Yet
Miller, hardly an anti-Semite, cited this approvingly, if you
look
at the quote in context. Bemoaning the “reflexively
pro-Israel” votes of most members of Congress, Miller wrote
that “being too one-sided isn’t good for Israel or
America,” and went on to cite Hagel as an exception to the
rule:

“’This
is an institution that does not inherently bring out a great deal of
courage,’ Hagel continued. ‘Most of the time members
play it safe and adopt an ‘I’ll support Israel’
attitude. AIPAC comes knocking with a pro-Israel letter, and ‘then
you’ll get 80 to 90 senators on it. I don’t think I’ve
ever signed one of the letters.’ When someone would accuse him
of not being pro-Israel because he didn’t sign the letter,
Hagel told me he responds: ‘I didn’t sign the letter
because it was a stupid letter.’

“Few
legislators talk this way on the Hill. Hagel is a strong supporter
of Israel and a believer in shared values. The Jewish lobby
intimidates a lot of people up here,” but as he put it ‘I’m
a United States senator not an Israeli senator.’”

Aside from narrowing
the scope of the Israel lobby to being merely a “Jewish lobby” — when, in fact, it encompasses a huge cheering section of
ignorant
Christian fundamentalists who blindly support Israel for profoundly
weird theological reasons — no reasonable person could
find fault with Hagel’s remarks. But we aren’t dealing
with reasonable people when it comes to the extremists who worship
Israel over and above the interests of their own country — a
description that most certainly does not include most
Americans of the Jewish faith.

Hagel opposed
the Iraq war when it wasn’t cool
for Republicans to do so. He opposed
the Afghan “surge” when even some alleged
anti-interventionists supported
that futile war. And while one
insufferably priggish anti-interventionist, writing for a major
conservative magazine, has described him as a “thoroughly
conventional and hawkish internationalist,”
this is laughable. Bill Kristol knows this, which is why he and his
gang have gotten out the long knives..

Hagel was a distinctly
unconventional Senator and will make a distinctively
unconventional Defense Secretary, and a strong voice for peace in
the foreign policy councils of this administration. Sure, he’s
an “internationalist,” if that vague phrase has any
meaning: as head of the Atlantic
Council, which seeks to uphold and strengthen the
Euro-American alliance, he can hardly be called an “isolationist,”
a creature that doesn’t exist in American politics and a label
Hagel’s critics are eager to pin on him. He is clearly a
foreign policy “realist.”

And yet one can be an
internationalist, as well as a “realist,” in the sense
of wanting to engage with other countries in a constructive manner,
and still qualify as an anti-interventionist. Internationalism and
realism are worldviews, theoretical frameworks on which to hang
specific policies: anti-interventionism, on the other hand, is a
policy, one that defines American interests relatively
narrowly and favors engagement over military action in defense of
those interests.

One has to wonder,
also, by what standard Hagel is to be judged as “thoroughly
hawkish.” Unlike Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who has been
busy distancing
himself from the alleged “radicalism” of
his father, voting for Iran
sanctions, and getting in Jennifer Rubin’s good
graces, Hagel opposed Iran sanctions and refused to
kowtow to the Israel lobby. Yet Senator Paul is being pushed as the
Great White Hope of the libertarian/anti-interventionist movement on
the right, while Hagel is disdained by the American
Conservative’s resident foreign policy “expert”
as just another Washington warmonger. Go figure.

If President Obama
refuses to be spooked by the Lobby’s display of polemical
fireworks, and “pro-Israel”
Democrats fail to get to him, the confirmation
process will prove to be quite interesting. It will be the Israel
lobby’s last stand, their one chance to check their declining
influence and prove that Washington is still, as Pat Buchanan
famously put it, “Israeli occupied territory.”

Instead of nipping at
Hagel’s heels with sectarian criticisms of past errors, both
real and imagined, anti-interventionists of the right and the left
need to get behind this nomination and push it for it for all it’s
worth. And it is worth something: as the War Party beats the drums
for an attack on Iran, Hagel at DoD will prove something of an
obstacle to the Bill Kristols of this world. Given the caveat that
this administration is hardly committed to a policy of
non-intervention, as the first four years of Obama’s
presidency have clearly shown, we shouldn’t overlook the
immense value of having a prominently placed brake in place over at
the Pentagon.

The battle for peace
consists of many small skirmishes, fought over a long stretch of
years, as well as major battles, and this is one we need to win. So
get ready for a mudslide
of smears and innuendo as the Lobby homes in for the kill —
because this one is going to be a battle to the death. And, I might
add, for the benefit of certain professional pessimists:
those who aren’t with us, are against us.

Buy the second edition
of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy
of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof.
George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical
essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon, here.

Buy my biography of
the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of
Murray N. Rothbard, here.

And, don’t
forget, I write a monthly column for Chronicles magazine,
where I really let loose: you can subscribe by going here.

This may be (if the wuss follows through with it) the first Obomber appointment that is worth a sh*t.

I watched the video links and have read of Hagel's courage in resisting the massage from the Likudnick/AIPAC hoes. I will look forward with some hopefulness to seeing him perform as Sec of Def if he makes it that far.

Supporting Israel has always been the 'LITMUS TEST" for political appointees or elected officials. AIPAC is "Chas Freemaning" the honorable Senator Chuck Hagel, a man who's served this country with his blood, courage, and principles.

Obama has proven himself spineless on Israel and may cave in unless WE THE PEOPLE let him know otherwise.

Just who does our government serve, Israel or America? Judging by Congress and the silence of the American people, I'd say Israel.

One can just imagine how the isreal-usa bondage is viewed by the rest of humanity.

A state of some 320 million individuals claiming its the "home of the free and brave" is and has been subservient to a state created specifically for a racially religious people numbering less than 12 million.

"'Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite.' That’s what a top Republican Senate aide told…" Wait, isn't Hagel Republican? Makes you wonder who this aide refers to by "we." Not to mention the arrogance. So every American is supposed to outraged that someone may or may not be an anti-semite? Would have been an entirely different thing had the aide said anti-American, anti-middle class. But no. It's the allegation of anti-semitism that is supposed to have every American up in arms.

If Freeman didn't survive the process I doubt that Hagel will either. Perhaps they're setting things up to make a mainstream realist more palatable after all the fuzz about Hagel subsides.

Assuming that there's any truth to this business of Hagel at DoD, it would be gret news for the country because it shows that someone is coming to his senses in the White House. That realists are apparently given a chance again is cause for optimism. Not to mention that aipac and the traitors are starting to lose their power- wouldn't that be great? Hagel and Paul should form a realist, non-interventionist and pro-American wing at the Senate. Aren't these two talking to each other?

WoW….. I spend AN HOUR writing my comment on this article, and it is (instantly) ":deleted by the administrator…???"
Makes me think the "straight-talking Vietnam vet" has as much chance as my comment in this Neocon Star Chamber of death and destruction in which we find ourselves hostages …………..

Really? I find that hard to believe. Our staff has a lot more to do than stand guard over the comments section of my column — especially this early in the morning! It must have been a technical glitch.

how is it that a little lying maggot like bill kristol gets to walk around free after his lies and the death they've sown? maybe one day people in this country will wake up and do what should be done to these despicable criminals. eh, probably not but i know what i would do if i ever came face to face with him or any of his kind.

And yet…it is difficult to rationalize Hagels welcome rhetoric with his votes FOR the Iraq War and The Patriot Act. On two of the most pressing issues of his day his votes did not not match his rhetoric.

He may prove to be as good as Justin perceives, or merely the best of a bad lot.

I stayed up late last night waiting for Mr. Raimondo's latest….. I had imagined the magnitude of Sandy Hook may have drawn him to comment on the death cult that we have become…………. including the latest memo.. that WE have "opened our aperture to include CHILDREN with 'hostile intent'" along with males of military age to "hunt"….. or so says Lt. Col

There was an article in Marine Times….. but it scurried down the rabbit hole soon after the press notice of it's contents… Maybe the Sandy Hook shooter got the memo and wanted to 'help'

As for John Kerry…… He has a history with me. I voted for him the first time he ran for Senate… and each time thereafter till his last run… when I voted for Riley… along with 30% of Kerry's Massachusetts primary voters… He switched from an advocate for peace to the pro-war consensus ……. because he was running for president and didn't want to look weak…. Around that time, he had a Madelain Albright moment and "discovered" he is a Hebrew….. and jumped onto the Neocon war wagon….. Look at his performance in Pakistan after the Raymond Davis fiasco…..
Kerry turned my faith in him as a reasonable and fair …… to regret for my past support of him….
Kerry has become Madelain Albright in every important way…. "A million dead Iraqi's…."? Not worth any past regrets…??? His senatorial tenure seems to have sucked out all his humanity ALA Albright
and left him a dried husk of presidential ambition ……

Yes, Chuck Hagel: An Unconventional Realist…….. He seems to have paddled against the current time and time again… I just can't get past the swell of Neocon agenda that seems to have swamped America as she lists on into their fog of Full spectrum Dominance while burning our fiat script…… Anyone who has faith that conquering the world this way will destroy America….. is a pariah….. America the Shining light on the hill of the bones of her native victims…. America, the light of freedom in the world to torture and kill children like Omar Khadr……….

O.K. so Hagel can paddle against the tide…… But can anyone paddle FAST ENOUGH to keep the American ship of State from the rocks of ruin , economic collapse and peerless moral depravity ….?? One thing is sure, with Hagel we have a prayer… with Kerry we will be lost and rudderless as he himself has has become….

The Obama administration is so cowardly I suspect that Hagel nomination is ploy to gain leverage with Israel on other fronts and will never come to pass.

But let's be clear: Romney would have never made such a nomination. Quite the opposite. The Republican party needs to reformatted because Christian-Zionist fundamentalism has grafted itself into the party's genetics.

When Raimondo said Obama was a 'better' election choice than Romney, it was not in praise of Obama but a frank look at how dangerously ideological Republican foreign policy has become. It took 'realpolitik' guts by Raimondo to say this when Alex Jones et al. were shrieking about 'obama-phones'.

How this nomination plays out will be a very telling moment in American politics – and how Obama's 2nd term will unfold.

kerry is a bonesman, a serial liar, and a globalist pig. he threw the election in '04 as planned by his masters. he is yet another vapid, useless phony criminal like 99.9% of every one in the beltway and/or career politicos. as an aspiring queen of hearts to the neocon pigs i say "off with his head".

I hope Hagel, turns the job down. If he cared at all about the Constitution why would he want to "work for" an administration that continues to shred it. To work for them he may as well throw out any principle he ever believed in. It's too late to change anything by the time he arrives.

Yaa I forgot about the bones….. Well except for "Shining light on the hill of the bones of her native victims…. " Too weird…… Isn't it Gerranamo's bones that the Bonehead founder stole and took to New Haven..?????? Odd how that bones one slipped out………. Some sort of Neopsycho slip…!!!

The terrible thing is that AIPAC and its followers push for what they CLAIM is in Israel's interest, while people like Chuck Hagel are probably helping Israel more by acting fairly and in a balanced way. Many can see the hopeless future for israel itself in the actions of Likud/far Right policies and refusal to consider peace.
Let us hope Obama is not going to cave again, then ask Joe Lieberman to take the job!!!

still, it's hard to justify more than just a mordicum of optimism, based on the fact that Susan Rice, an Israeli "no daylighter" (as Justin brilliantly described her), would have been slated for the Obama administration's secretary of state position. Secretary of state, being the brand-shaper of the foreign policiy, to which the secretary of defense is just the enforcer.

"This man Hagel has claimed there is a Jewish lobby with extraordinary power in the United States, and we in the Jewish lobby find this to be offensive and anti-semitic. So we are going to use all of our power- and believe me, we have a lot- to ensure that he does not become defence secretary and continue to spread such nonsense. We'll see who's in charge around here."

"The U.S. has killed between 20-30 million people since WW2" ….????? OMG David…. Say it ain't SO…!!!! Virtually unbelievable…!!! W0W.. I would have guessed less than TEN million…….. How do you come up with 20-30 million..?? If true, it's an indictment beyond the pale…. The UGLIEST, MOST GROTESQUE TWISTED CRIMINALITY TO RIVAL…..EXCEED THE WORST MONSTERS in all of history….[OMG. Me…. US??]….. How can it be possible……….??????????

The interesting thing about all of this is that, whatever happens, the Lobby loses. Consider the possibilities.
1. Obama proposes Hagel: the Lobby loses because Obama will be perceived as defying it.
2. Obama proposes someone else: the Lobby loses because it will be perceived as having bullied Obama into dropping Hagel and no claim that there was some other reason will be believed.
3. The Senate ratifies Hagel: speaks for itself!
4. The Senate rejects Hagel: same point in regard to the Senate as under no. 2.
Essentially, the Lobby has painted itself into a corner.

When the war gets to this level–whether or not we believe the Army's assertions that the kids it's killing in Afghanistan deserved it–it's time to rethink whether you are winning hearts and minds, nation rebuilding, or just involved in an endless insane game of blowing $hit up and making people so mad they give you what you think is a legitimate excuse to keep blowing $hit up.

From the Military Times on exciting new fronts in the war in Afghanistan.

Really catchy theme…!! Maybe Monsanto could use it to advertise Agent Orange to a wider audience… GMO corn and Rape'

We are OWNED…!!! All Gov. actions are crafted to keep us OWNED…… We are the tax slave army of the international bankers AKA…… imperialists… They HAVE taken ALL of our rights…!!! Some entirety, others have been chipped away to meaninglessness. What did John Yoo say…???

" Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty…

Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Don't forget the dems may be looking for a way to shovel the overseas mess that they helped create back onto the Republicans. By putting a Republican there the dems may be hoping to say see, "It's all the Republicans". :) The dems should have to own it.

Mr Raimondo, can we have an update to this article. The Aipac lobby is already in full gear and trying to bully the president. Their commentators are out in full force. Is this going to be a nail biter?

[…] possible confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense is going full swing. As I told my readers the other day, “get ready for a mudslide of smears and innuendo as the [Israel] Lobby homes in for the kill.” […]

[…] possible confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense is going full swing. As I told my readers the other day, “get ready for a mudslide of smears and innuendo as the [Israel] Lobby homes in for the […]

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].